User:JOURNO RAFI/sandbox

Senior journalist M Rafi Ahmed, hailing from the textile city of Coimbatore, had his schooling at Mani High School till eleventh class and thereafter pursued his Pre-University Course at famed Trichy Jamal Mohamed College. Back to home town Coimbatore and completed UG in commerce at PSG college of arts and science. It was his English teacher Shanmughamani, who identified his writing skills while at ninth class. And he took it in the right perspective to pen off-beat stories to magazines published from Delhi. Some of the popular mags that are now defunct include Illustrated Weekly, Current, Blitz. Rafi's maiden story that got published was in Illustrated Weekly when Khushwant Singh was the editor. It took nearly a year to learn the nuances of story writing after regularly browsing thru' the pages of national dailies and magazines. As luck would have it. Rafi was on cloud nine on seeing his name in print in Illustrated Weekly. The first article was about beggar nuisance wherein they squat near temples, churches and mosques seeking alms. Rafi did his home-work interacting with beggars of different ages and from different places. The idea behind the article is to get the beggars rehabilitated based on their interest. The article concluded with a message seeking the powers-that-be to shelter beggars at government homes and identify their innate skills to make them get a livelihood. The bottomline of the article received appreciation from the editor Khushwant Singh to publish it as it is wayback in early 70s. Interestingly, writing became Rafi's passion which he improvised while at college. And he seized the opportunity which came his way in seeing his human interest stories in the open page of Indian Express, Madurai edition. Undoubtedly, it gave him a pep to develop his writing skills further. After his academics, Rafi took up a cub reporter's job in a magazine published from Bengaluru that was run by former chief of minister of Karnataka Gundu Rao. All was fine till it was wound up in early 80s. With four decade experience in print media, he worked both as reporter and sub editor in Chennai based eveninger News Today and Trinity Mirror (Makkal Kural group). Then shifted to The New Indian Express as staff correspondent in Theni, Nagercoil and later became chief reporter at the TNIE, Coimbatore edition. When Deccan Chroncile was launched in Coimbatore, he moved to the paper as chief reporter and worked till 2012. And it was good tidings for this senior journalist when Makkal Kural and Trinity Mirror editor and publisher R Muthu Kumar offered him a slot to work in Coimbatore edition in 2013. Even while taking care of business page for Coimbatore edition, Rafi pens special stories on young entrepreneurs besides young talents of varied interests and skills. Happily married to Shefa, a BSc Botany grad of Cumbum, Theni district, the couple has a son and a daughter and settled in Podanur neighbourhood in Coimbatore.